


Come Home to the Gallows Pole

by treefrogie84



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Booker | Sebastien le Livre Whump, Canon-Typical Violence, Captured, Dark, Gen, Hanging, Hurt No Comfort, Torture, Whumptober 2020, borderline dead dove, dislocations, implied canon-typical MCD, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:21:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27050350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/treefrogie84/pseuds/treefrogie84
Summary: A different group has claimed their safehouse as their own. It would have been nice to know thatbeforeBooker walked in after twenty-three hours of airplanes and seventeen hours of busses.Instead, he's been tossed into the small cellar and left there.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 44





	Come Home to the Gallows Pole

**Author's Note:**

> Look up there at those tags. Read them. Read them again. I don't want to hear any complaints about not knowing what you're getting into. That said, if you think I missed a tag, *PLEASE* let me know.
> 
> No beta, we die like immortals.

He’s not sure how long he’s been down here. What light he can see from under the hood never changes and he doesn’t know how much he’s slept. Days, he thinks, arms cuffed together and chained to the ceiling above. There’s enough slack for him to stand properly, shifting from one leg to another, but not enough to crouch or even bend over.

Trying just risks dislocating one or both shoulders and putting him in a worse position.

He’s passed out at least three times when he dozed off and his body failed, legs giving out beneath him, dropping him sharply and his own weight pulling one or both of his shoulders out of place.

One time, it had been an elbow.

He needs to get out of here, before whoever grabbed him figures out he can’t die. Or at least, doesn’t stay dead. It would be a lot easier if there was anyone expecting him. Eventually, the calvary would arrive. Instead, he’s… just here.

The floor above creaks, muffled laughter drifting faintly through the floor as the footsteps cross the house.

Frantically, he tries to scrape the hood off, just so he can see what’s coming, but they must have tied it to something the last time he passed out. It goes nowhere, and he does nothing besides start to hyperventilate.

Low, dark, laughter from behind him, a disembodied hand dragging across his back. “Back with us, I see. No matter.” They step away, leaving him hanging in the dark. A crank turns nearby and the chain shortens, link by fucking link, forcing him up on his tiptoes.

If he could get free, one hand or free movement of his legs…

If he could get free, this wouldn’t be happening. If he wasn’t an idiot, wasn’t alone, if anyone even knew he was missing… but no. He’d made his choice, and they’d made theirs in retaliation, and now he’s alone.

His captor scoffs, pulling at whatever keeps the hood on and jerking it off. “Still think you can waltz in here, like you can own the place?” The man slaps him across the face.

He chokes on his tongue, feeling the heat-blush-bruise on his cheek. Pathetic. He’s paid to have worse done to him. “Place has been in my family for decades,” he mutters. “I do own the place.”

Glancing upward, he tries to make out how, exactly, he’s been chained, but they’ve hung him directly beneath a light, the glare too much for him to see detail. A solid bar keeping his hands apart, thirty centimeters of metal with cuffs at either end and the chain holding him through the middle.

The punch comes from nowhere, knocking the breath out of him and sending him swinging, feet scrabbling for grip. He can feel his shoulder just on the verge of dislocating and he hates it, he always hates it, it’s worse than being stabbed.

His wild oscillations slow and then stop as he gets his feet back under him, glaring at the other man from beneath the fringe of his hair.

The little shit is grinning, head cocked to the side like he’s waiting for something. A trick of some sort. “This is how this is going to go,” he sneers, in Portuguese accented English. “We need this house, and we don’t need Americans coming down on us. We have a shipment coming in. So you’re going to hang here, quietly, until I have time to deal with you. Once our business is completed, we’ll reopen discussions.”

Drug then, or sex traffickers. It doesn’t matter, when it comes to hanging by the wrists waiting to be killed, but later, when he’s out of here, he’ll have to dismantle the entire operation.

He doesn’t protest when the hood is pulled back over his head, blocking the light once more. The tie is tighter this time, close around his neck, a constant reminder. And then, just because the man is clearly a dick, he turns the crank again, shortening the chain by another few links, forcing him up onto his toes, his shoulders and arms taking all his weight as he swings slowly.

He stays silent for as long as he can, but nothing can keep him from shouting when both shoulders go within a few minutes of each other, leaving him dangling in excruciating agony.

And his stupid stupid immortality just heals them, only for it to happen again and again and again. For days, weeks, he doesn’t know. They’ve forgotten about him, left him down here to hang in his own personal hell. After a few days, they stop giving him water, food, any relief at all from his chains.

He hangs there, in the dark, hurting and healing, dying and reviving, over and over again.

This is being alone, this is what he tried to sentence the others to, this is all he’ll ever know, until the house rots above him.


End file.
